


Chapter Fourteen

by makemeupofstars (cansandstring)



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (Lemony Snicket)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 22:25:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cansandstring/pseuds/makemeupofstars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What takes place after the end of The Beatrice Letters? Where are Violet, Klaus, and Sunny? Why is Lemony Snicket avoiding Beatrice Baudelaire? If you are looking for a neat summary that leaves you satisfied, I would recommend looking any other section than this one. If you are expecting tales of Happy the Elf, I think you may have a slightly better chance in the Harry Potter section of AO3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chapter Fourteen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [goblin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goblin/gifts).



TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

I find myself in a situation that many would find concerning, but it would be especially worrisome to three supposed orphans who had been living their lives in secret with a girl who was passed off as the eldest orphan's daughter. If you are not an orphan, have a daughter who is not actually your own, or have a perfectly happy and cheerful past, this letter is likely not for you. Please pass it to the third gentleman to the left of you, who is wearing a houndstooth checkered hat.

Now, if you are one of the aforementioned individuals (in this case meaning The Baudelaire Orphans), I must urge you to disregard any letters you may receive in regards to the whereabouts of your parents. I have stumbled upon what may be nothing more than a waiter with a nervous tic, but I believe he was trying to pass on vital information about their whereabouts. This is obviously a cruel secret to keep from the three of you, and would like very much to meet with you and pass along said information. I'm sure that there are people who would be willing to use said information for their own gain.

There will be cake. If you would be interested in such a meeting, I would be happy to meet you outside of the wreckage of what used to be the Lucky Smells Lumber Mill. I will be the man with the very large hat and a very small beard, and will have my companion with me. Please do not wait - there are people who seek the knowledge that we have, and have been staring at us rather menacingly.

  


A Friend.

\--

Dear Violet, Sunny, and Klaus,

I pray that this letter reaches you in time to save you from a rather untimely and inconvenient fate. I have been followed at every turn, but I have found a spare moment to pass this note to a remarkably convenient bat that is sitting on the edge of my windowsill. With all hope, the bat will leave here, and possibly due to the ingenuity of a master Batticeer will discover where you are now preferably hiding or regretably being held prisoner.

If the case is the former, you should be careful. Former associates of your former associates (in this case, your parents) have suddenly started looking very cheerful, as well as gaining information that has put your location at risk. They may also attempt to contact you via bat-post, or some other kind of post (meaning here, mail service) to lure you out into the open. As I'm sure you are aware, there are several pieces of information that are currently unknown and it is known that the three of you may be the only people left that know said information. I have done my best to avoid revealing your location (to the best of my knowledge) to anyone that I have spoken too, looked at, sneezed on, or passed in a crowded hallway, however I have on more then one occasion in the last few months come back to my office on the thirteenth floor of The Rhetorical Building and found things not exactly as I had left them. Thus, my office is no longer on the thirteenth floor, and I am not entirely sure of there whereabouts of several of my files.

I am avoiding all contact as possible, even including the persistence that leads to holes in floors, sore-footed yaks, breaking and entering, juvenile delinquency, and year-long leases, but I break it now to not be one step behind you, but more one step to the left and vaguely catercorner of you. My editor has also received a copy of this letter via telegram, as his office is bat-proof.

If you are the latter of the above (that is, currently tied up and in distress), I hope that the bat will be smart enough (and its trainer, as well) to flee while it still can, and that you will find a way to safety. I will arrange whatever help I can. If I were you (which would be intensely difficult, given that there is only one of me) then I would perhaps look for an out-of-place operagoer who coughs four times and then leans against the wall, out of breath. You should ask them if it looks like rain (that is, if you are not gagged) and if they respond "Only on Sundays," then you know they are trustworthy.

I can hear the church from the warehouse where I am currently sequestered. The churchbells chime with such force, I forget all about the world in which I have been. Next to Notre Dame is a park called St. Jaques where people listen to the quiet of their own thoughts. There is no one playing boules here, but the warehouse is, nonetheless, charming. That's the last bell, which means I must leave before the first employees arrive.

With All Due Respect,

Lemony Snicket

\--  


Dear Sir,

I continue to look for you, although the rather large employees of the shipping warehouse say that they saw no men who fit your description (that is, a tall man who still has all of his hair.) Still, I sent one of my bats, and since she has not returned I don't think I am terribly far from the track. There is also an imprint roughly the size of a typewriter here in the dust, as well as size nine footprints.

I have found invoices in your office from a cobbler-- as you wear size nine shoes, I will have to assume that you were here. I am still looking for Violet, Klaus, and Sunny, and I will continue to follow you as I am lead to believe that you are the closest to finding their actual whereabouts, especially discounting the article in the Daily Punctilio this morning. I have talked to your doorman at length, and he has mentioned your editor.

I have been trying to piece together the last fifteen years, and it is not unlike seven puzzles mixed together and half the pieces being eaten by something large and unfriendly. I am unsure of your role in my family's life, but I refuse to believe that your time in helping the Baudelaires is at an end. Please pause an hour longer at your next stop-- that will hopefully give me enough time to catch up with you. I think you are the one hope I have of finding Violet, Sunny, and Klaus without falling into whatever they are wound up in myself.

I do not honestly know if there are any other volunteers left for me to ask for help, but I suspect that those I find would be less than thrilled to assist me. You are one of my last hopes. I am sending this with my best bat, and I pray that it reaches you in time for me to avoid being an orphan yet again.

Beatrice Baudelaire

**Author's Note:**

> Image from Getty Images. Sebald Code from [the Sebald Decoder.](http://www.brownelearning.org/enworb/documents/sebald_decoder.html)
> 
> Happy Holidays, goblin!


End file.
